Got an update from Amazon that Obi-Wan and Yord will be here Monday...

Mattel announced that they were revising some forecasts, planning for price hikes, and planning to move some manufacturing out of China because of the tariffs.  Then this happened...

Trump threatens toymaker Mattel with 100% tariffs
Steve Kopack

After toymaker Mattel said it would move some production from China to India to dodge 145% tariffs on China, Trump said he could hit the company with 100% tariffs.

Referring to the planned move that Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz announced, Trump said, "I've heard them say ... we're gonna try going somewhere else. That's OK. We'll put 100% tariff on his toys."

"And he won't sell toys in the United States, that's their biggest market," Trump added.

Shares of Mattel briefly took a sharp drop on Trump's comments, and the stock remains lower by around 2%.

 

Wow!

Agree.  A+.  No Notes.  This arc was fantastic.

That should just be a hold.  The authorization should clear eventually...

https://support.disneystore.com/hc/en-us/articles/5610124491539-When-will-I-be-charged-for-a-pre-order

If that’s true it probably means what Jeff said is right… lower preorder totals so they can charge what they need to later depending on tariffs.  They’re not going to only make 2,300 of those.

I feel bad for folks who missed out.  Lots of unnecessary anger and stress. 

Hasbro rarely ever takes pre-orders for 100% of a manufacturing run.  You can lose a cargo container, have items damaged in transit.  If you've sold 100% of a run and something bad happens, you have to cancel orders, people get pissed.  Heck, McFarlane just had a whole truck load of figures stolen that led to cancelled customer orders and it went over very poorly.

In this case, it sure feels like Hasbro cut way back on the number available for pre-orders.  Probably trying to protect themselves from tariffs without having to raise prices yet.  Save more for sale once they get here and the tariff cost is known and the price can be reset with some "price includes unavoidable tariff surcharge" or something like we've seen others do.

Hasbro seems to be doing all they can to avoid posting price hikes as long as they could.  It sure seems to be coming though with the Pulse site having the "Lock-in pre-order pricing today. Current pre-orders end May 9th at 12:01 EDT" text. 

The whole thing could backfire on them of course.  People can't get a pre-order in, they get frustrated and walk away.  The alternative is to raise prices to cover the "unknown" of the tariffs that might be in place in the Fall and then people still get upset for the price hike.  It's kind of hard for Hasbro to do anything that isn't going to piss off someone.

Thought this was interesting (from Yakface Twitter).

Looks like Hasbro is prepping for some pre-order price hikes...  if there is something you've been thinking about buying, maybe now is the time to pre-order (you can always cancel the pre-order later if you change your mind).

Sold out!

It's bouncing in and out of stock, so act fast...

Looks like it is back to Sold Out again.